Three years after the UPA 2 government made sweeping changes to the admission process at top engineering institutes of the country, an expert panel appointed by its successor government has recommended another set of changes, including a single entrance examination for both IITs and NITs, no weightage to school board marks, and a compulsory aptitude test.

The committee, headed by academic Ashok Mishra, has suggested that JEE (Main) and JEE (Advanced) should be merged into a single entrance exam, conducted by the IITs and intended to test a candidate’s knowledge of physics, chemistry and mathematics. Currently, JEE (Main), meant for admission to the NITs, is conducted by the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE), and JEE (Advanced) by the IITs.Read more…

Part- F Application Form Filling

Part- G Miscellaneous queries

Part-H Children of Indian Workers in Gulf Countries (CIWG)

Part- I: Real Life Queries (Choice-Fillng by CIWG etc)

1) What is DASA Scheme?

DASA stands for Direct Admission of Students Abroad. Under this scheme, Non-Resident Indians (NRIs)/ Foreign Nationals/Persons of Indian Origin (PIOs) are admitted to Undergraduate Courses in Engineering in National Institutes of Technology (NITs), IIITs and other premier Technical Institutions in India. DASA scheme is centrally coordinated by one of the NIT by rotation under HRD Ministry. Just for clarity, IITs are not covered under DASA Scheme.

2) Is there is any DASA-like scheme for medical (MBBS) admissions?

No. However, the NRIs/PIOs can get admissions to private medical colleges as about 15% seats are allocated for NRI admissions. Please refer following article for more info on medical admissions

3) What are the options in Govt/Private technical institutes other than DASA scheme administered by NIT-Surathkal for NRIs/PIOs?

It is to be noted that the following institutes have their own separate schemes for NRIs or International Students and the application for the same has to be completed on the respective Institute’s website:

Please choose in the order of SAT2 Cut-off score for 2016-17 provided at the website. (higher SAT 2 cut-off being better institute). Generally,

NITK=DTU=NITT=NITW

NSIT=NITC=MNNIT=NITD

MNIT=VNIT=SVNIT=PEC

9) Are NRIs eligible to compete to get merit seat (at normal resident fee) for Engg and Medical Colleges?

NRIs are fully eligible to give competitive exams like JEE-Main and JEE-Advance for engineering colleges and AIPMT/NEET for medical colleges and pay normal resident Indian fee if they qualify in the exam.

10) What shall be the basis of preparing Merit List for the scheme?

Merit list shall be prepared on the basis of SAT Subject Test (SAT II) aggregate scores of Maths Level 2, Physics and Chemistry. While a total score of 2400 in PCM would guarantee a seat in the preferred college and the branch, a minimum score of 1440 (60%). In case of a tie, the Date of Birthis used as tie-breaker where older applicant is favored

Question : What is the minimum requirement to qualify for application?

Answer : Applicant must have passed the qualifying examination, i.e. Senior Secondary [10+2] or equivalent [See Appendix-I of Brochure] from any system of education as recognized by the Association of Indian Universities (www.aiuweb.org).

Question : What is the minimum requirement in +2 /qualifying examination?

Answer : A candidate should have a minimum of 60% aggregate (or 6.50 CGPA on a 10 point scale or equivalent) in the qualifying examination. The qualifying examination, shall include all subjects as mentioned in qualifying examination Mark sheet.

The minimum SAT2 score requirement of 1800 could be relaxed to 1440 during spot admission. Those applicants who have taken admissions in private colleges due to minm SAT2 score requirement have a big opportunity to get admissions to NITs as NIT brand is highly recognised in India and abroad.

Update: 1 July 2011

DASA-2011 1st Merit List has been declared today. Hearty Congratulations to all those who got their preferred branch and the college :).

1) Mechanical branch was the most popular branch going by the cut-offs, followed by ECE and CSE. Out of top 100 applicants, 33 opted for Mechanical, 21 for ECE and 25 for Computers.

2) NITK was the most popular college. Following is the number of DASA scheme toppers selecting this institute:8 out of 10, 15 out of 20, 34 out of 50 and 58 out of first 100 toppers selecting NITK.

3) NITK (58 out of top 100) was followed up by NIT-Trichy (18 toppers out of 100), NIT-W (8 out of 100) and PEC & NIT-C getting 7� toppers each out of 100 toppers. We have been consistent in giving this ranking� on this blog. Last year (2010), the break of college-wise preference of top 100 applicants was as following: NITK (37), NIT-T: 23, NIT-W:14, NIT-C: 10 and PEC:9.

4) Due to steep fee hike in DASA scheme, less applicants have selected DASA scheme this year, many opting for other govt/private colleges. This is evident by number of students opting for DASA scheme has come down by about 15% in the category of those getting more than 1800 SAT2 score as compared to last year.

My apologies to all those parents/students whose querries I could not respond in last week due to minor injury I had on my wrist.

Update: 27 May 2011

Following is a new blog post on ranking of Indian engineering intitutes.� These rankings take care of various parameters (students, faculty, infra, placement etc).

As promised, we are publishing expected SAT2 score cut-off for DASA scheme 2011 admissions.� Obviously, these are only indicative SAT2 PCM cut-off figures and would depend on the relative performance and yet-to-be-decided preference by the individuals .� However, they could provide some clues on the available choices with the given scores.

The NRI/Foreign Nationals desirous of getting admissions to Indian central engineering colleges (i.e NITs) under DASA scheme for the session 2011-12 should visit following official site periodically to keep track of any new information on the scheme
http://www.dasanit.org/DASA scheme 2011:DASA Scheme 2011 Guidelines/Procedure

Which branch of engineering is best? This is the most commonly asked question during July month every year when AIEEE counselling gets underway (and coincidentally my summer vacation to India occurs invariably in July every year and am asked this question frequently by parents from non-engg background). The question is obviously asked to know which branch will have better prospects after passing-out and beyond. Since most old IITs don�t have ECE branch (only IITG, IITR and IIT Kharagpur offer ECE ), the first preference of JEE toppers is CSE so much so that one could not get CSE in IIT-Bombay even with a JEE rank of 50 in 2008 (last rank to get CSE was 47 in IIT Bombay). For this reason we would limit ourselves to non-IIT colleges for choosing between CSE or ECE. Under DASA scheme for NRIs, NITs are the only colleges to opt for and this discussion suits such students very well.

We would discuss the topic in scientific manner and shall use weighted average method to select the right branch. To begin with, we would list down all important criteria/preferences, assign them weightage based on one�s background/aptitude and start assigming marks to the two branches. A sample exercise in the form of Excel sheet is available in the download section of this website. Please keep in mind, it is a very much individual based selection (I wonder why a candidate has to have a herd mentality in choosing branch when same thing is not done even for a mundane thing like selecting right cake for one�s b�day).

In right earnest, we start to� list down the important factors based on one�s background

�1)��Your �plutonic� love for the subject. Ask yourself if you like coding in general? Would you love to work in a field job? Please don�t give this factor 100% weightage because there could be other factors one may miss. Many kids want to be astronauts when they are young but eventually don�t become one due to unavailability of state-of-art technology in the field in the country and lack of enough opportunities available in other sectors. The aeronautical branch in itself has certain restrictions (including security clearance) if one plans to pursue MS in US (post 9/11). Similarly, food technology requires similar security clearance in US by FDA. Moreover, if you want to select a particular branch due to scholarships available in USA, then engg as discipline may not be the best thing as people easily get scholarship in fields like archeology and history.